Coalition Sharply Reduces Joint Operations With Afghan Troops

An Afghan soldier, left, on patrol with an American soldier in the Barakzai hamlet of Sangsar. Similar operations in the future will require approval by a general.Credit
Bryan Denton for The New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — In a significant blow to a core element of the Western exit strategy from Afghanistan, the American-led military coalition said Tuesday that it had temporarily curtailed joint operations with the Afghan Army and police forces.

The new limits are a sign of how American priorities were being drastically reordered amid a wave of anti-American sentiment brought on by an anti-Islam movie, which has sparked riots across the Muslim world and on Tuesday was the motive behind a suicide bombing here that killed 14 people, 10 of them foreigners.

Coalition officials said they feared that anger over the American-made film, which mocks the Prophet Muhammad, could worsen an already deadly spike in attacks on foreign troops by Afghan soldiers and police forces over the past six weeks. Under the rules issued on Sunday, a general’s approval will be required for foreign forces to work with Afghans on a tactical level — a broad category that covers activities like joint patrols into Taliban territory and hands-on training behind the fortified walls of a shared outpost.

Until now, junior officers from both sides were able to organize patrols or small operations on their own. An American captain, for instance, could send men from his company to reinforce Afghans in a firefight without seeking higher approval.

The shift away from a top-to-bottom partnership with Afghans, even on a temporary basis, represents a sharp departure from efforts to pull Afghan forces closer to the coalition’s own so they could battle the Taliban together and, at the same time, let Afghanistan’s nascent army and police lean on and learn from foreign troops.

Coalition officials had an oft-repeated catchphrase to describe the relationship: the two sides, they say, were fighting “shoulder-to-shoulder.”

Among higher-level units, that cooperation will remain unchanged, coalition officials said on Tuesday, stressing that the basic concept of forging a partnership with the Afghans to get them ready to fight on their own is still the guiding strategic principle for NATO forces.

“We are not stepping away from this,” said Lt. Col. Richard W. Spiegel of the Army, a coalition spokesman. “Things might look a little different, but we’re not walking away.”

Yet such talk did little to reassure Afghan soldiers and police forces, a number of whom said most of their units were not yet ready to fight on their own — an assessment shared by the Pentagon’s own public reporting.

“It’s better to announce a cease-fire so we can also step back and take a nap,” said Abdul Qayom Baqizoi, the police chief of Wardak Province in central Afghanistan.

An Afghan soldier said the new orders were already harming his forces, citing an episode on Monday in which an Afghan Army vehicle struck a hidden bomb. Two soldiers were killed, and the Americans did not respond to a request to evacuate four wounded soldiers, said Major Salam, an officer based in western Afghanistan who asked that his first name not be used.

Instead, he said, they had to wait for help from their own forces, which do not have medical evacuation helicopters. “It took them six hours to bring the soldiers to the hospital. One of them has lost a lot of blood, and he might die,” Major Salam said.

Amid the growth in popular anti-American sentiment, President Hamid Karzai and top officials in his government have also begun this week to publicly push back on Washington’s demands that they hold thousands of prisoners indefinitely at a prison recently turned over by the Americans.

The government followed up on Tuesday by saying that Afghan law does not provide for the indefinite detention of prisoners.

American officials have countered that the Afghan government agreed to the indefinite detentions in the deal under which they won control of the prison, a detention facility in Parwan adjacent to the Bagram Air Base.

“We need to give everybody a chance to solve this at the high levels; once you trade barbs publicly, people’s positions harden,” said one Western official.

The coalition move to curtail direct cooperation with Afghan forces covers all work done by American military companies of roughly 120 men, and the platoons and squads of which they are composed. That includes many of the day-to-day interactions between the tens of thousands of coalition and Afghan troops that live on shared outposts and often work in small groups to more effectively combat insurgents who blend easily into villages.

“Clearly, we’re going to be seeing less” of the joint patrols, meetings with village elders and other work field units from the two sides often do together, said Colonel Spiegel, adding that such interaction will not cease completely.

The orders, which were first reported by The Associated Press, will remain in place until commanders believe that the insider threat to their soldiers and Marines has dropped, said Col. Thomas Collins, another coalition spokesman.

But the new orders cover the entire country, and given the current threat level, “commanders will be very discerning in the operations they approve or disapprove,” Colonel Collins said.

While the change will not alter the basic American strategy, “we are concerned with regards to these insider attacks and the impact they are having on our forces,” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told reporters in China, where he was traveling. Gen. John R. Allen, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, “has reflected that in the steps that he has taken,” Mr. Panetta said.

Some officials, though, acknowledged that the new order would sharply limit cooperation between junior American and Afghan officers and their troops in the field, and thus inevitably affect how the war was fought — and brought to a conclusion.

The logistical implications of the new orders — how smaller units will continue to share outposts with Afghan forces — are still being worked out, officials said. Sometimes, Afghan and coalition units are separated by mere yards, and they often man posts together and split duty in guard towers.

Other support the Americans and their NATO allies provide the Afghans will remain in place, like air cover, artillery support and, in select cases, the airlifting of wounded Afghans on American medical evacuation helicopters, officials said. Nor will life change significantly at battalion and brigade headquarters, which are not covered by the new limits and are, in any case, housed on sprawling bases where there is often physical distance and high walls between the NATO troops and the Afghans.

Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry played down the impact of the coalition move, saying in a statement that its army companies already conducted many operations on their own and would continue to do so.

But as word of the changes spread beyond Kabul, the potential blow to the morale of Afghan forces that for nearly a decade have looked to Americans for a variety supplies, like bullets and drinking water, quickly became apparent.

“We rely on the Americans for everything,” said Major Salam, the officer in western Afghanistan. “We still need their support.”

A version of this article appears in print on September 19, 2012, on page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Coalition Sharply Reduces Joint Operations With Afghan Troops. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe